The Astora's Straight Sword really is just "a weapon". Nothing unique, nothing its specifically good at, but nothing that really makes it challenging to use, aside from lackluster damage
The Astora's Straight Sword is genuinely my favorite weapon in Dark Souls 1 - Looks pretty - GOATed Longsword moveset - No need to collect Embers - No respawning skeletons - Makes bossfights last longer What's not to love? 😛
This sword is OP is the early game, it just doesn't scale well. Vitality and Endurance and very good stats in Dark souls 1, so choosing a weapon with high base damage and low stat investment will allow you to allocate points into vitality and endurance early. It's a great weapon if you want to start the game and immediately go to Bell Gargoyles or Blighttown, and it can even get you through Anor Londo at +2 with high vitality and endurance investment. Where it excels is if you plan to begin with the catacombs, since the sword has the benefit of permanently killing skeletons. If you go through the catacombs normally, without the skip, you can access several useful items, including the great scythe, and the crescent axe, as well as the blacksmith for early infusions. If you're dead-set on using it late-game, you should probably scale it with faith, since those points will also allow you to access miracles. Going through the catacombs right after killing the Capra demon will allow you do save Reah, who will sell you some of the best miracles in the game. C-C scaling with strength and dexterity means that on faith builds, you can allocate some points toward a higher-investment weapon without those points being completely useless to the Astora Straight Sword. I've never tried using it in late-game before, so I don't really know how good it effective it would be, but it certainly has it's uses and has served me well on several playthroughs.
This, good to prioritise Dex over Strength a little too for the Casting Speed. And even if it’s one of the weaker straight swords, it’s still a straight sword with a decent moveset. Edit: I’ve just done a full run with the ASS after watching this video and while I still stand by the fact that it can be (kind of) viable with Faith Builds, I will say that y’all weren’t joking about the damage falloff after O&S. Goddamn it was kinda nice against Nito but it was horrific against the Four Kings, it did so little damage that I ended up having to fight six of them at once.
exactly. early in my faith run this weapon was insane. after a few upgrades i melted Capra demon in 4 hits. common sense had me switching weapons pretty soon after, but Astora is goated for early game
@@MaddBadgerr In ASS’s defence, it’s a twinkling weapon that’s much easier to upgrade than a Divine Infused weapon. You could even get it to +5 before Sens Fortress by killing the Crystal Lizards in Great Hollow which ain’t too tough to do. But yes I agree that a Divine Broadsword would eventually make the ASS obsolete, I just really don’t wanna get the Large Divine Ember in Tomb Of The Giants early in the game ever again.
Pfft, that's not even remotely close to being the worst weapon in the game. Did you forget that fist weapons exist? Or what about the sniper crossbow? Or the two broken swords? Or daggers? Or whips? There are tons of worse weapons than the astora straight sword.
This sword carried me through half of my first ever playthrough of DS1 all those years ago. I didn't understand builds and scaling back then so the fact this could kill things easily even unupgraded, was a godsend for me. It got me to Anor Londo which is where it really started dropping off, so I switched to the BKS. But the astora sword is something I pick up straight away on all of my new playthroughs as a quick and accessible early weapon to deal with skeletons without hunting for necromancers.
Skipping the depths mean you lose out on at least 33,000 souls. 6,000 from capra and 25,000 from gaping dragon. 33k is notbing to scoff at especially in early game
Especially when you can parryclip into the fog gate to cheese Capra (basically the same setup as O&S AI cheese, but you don't go back to the bonfire, you just hit Capra through the fog gate)
@@theapexsurvivor9538 Or you can do the much easier skip from undead burg to the lower burg clipping through the ground and jumping inside Capra's arena - which causes his AI to freeze completely.
ASS is actually a really good weapon, if you're not playing DS1 like a sour chode lol If you try to use it on a character that's leveling mainly vigor and endurance and strength, that's a dum dum move. But if you pick up that sword on a run that's immediately dumping every level into faith, the sword is super powerful. It may be overshadowed by better scaling weapons later on, but until you can lightning infuse a Baller Swag Sword the ASS is amazing, as long as you're leveling faith over anything else. And you can pump a single Stat super high, super early if you focus exclusively on it.
@@AnAverageGoblinthat was kind of their point, that there are better weapons but Astoras can still be viable, plus why would you not level faith and have synergy with Miracles while using this anyway.
@@IamUzyf kind of, a +5 lightning greataxe is still pretty decent. It's really more about if you mind spending 20 minutes fighting a boss and whether or not you enjoy a weapon's moveset. I would agree that it is not advisable to use elemental weapons against DLC bosses unless you want to be challenged.
I mean, how bad can it be? It does average damage, swings at a medium speed and has okay damage scaling. Yeah, it isn't going to one-shot anything but seems like it would be decent enough in all scenarios. Maybe late game it starts to taper off a bit but wouldn't something like the Drake Sword be worse in that regard?
People think this is a bad weapon? A.S.S is the best weapon for the start of the playthrough. Minimal stat investment and a few easy twinklies. Way more viable and useful than the Drake Sword (which is the OG Noob weapon)
Four kings has an interesting mechanic. Only one king seems to actively fight at one time while the others that spawn seem to be relatively passive on the outside with the occasional sword swipe. The active king is based on keeping aggro/staying close. When the active king does the AOE attack this seems to also signal a new king spawn. If you run away from the burst then the aggro switches to a different one or new one. If you use a shield and tank the damage sticking close, then you should keep the attention of the one you were fighting. If you move away, then you need to go after the new active king, the one attacking you. If you disagree, please test it out.
Isn't that more or less the entire reason they seemed impossible to people during the 1-shot contest, since only one hangs out in close range at once so you can't Fire Tempest/Chaos Firestorm them all?
one critique I always had about souls games is that there are a ton of weapons but 90% of them are either useless or easily replaceable by a better option
Unlike the broken straight sword which is literally meant to be a joke weapon This weapon is an actual weapon, yet sucks at basically almost everything when compared to anything in its own category and other category The whips are at least far and few between making them unique despite still being bad
@@Garl_Vinland before long, you people always show up at some point. Some point you're entire existence is to just tell people they are wrong like you are on the spectrum.
@@calemr Scaling doesn't matter for most weapons the letter just doesn't matter because scaling is based off of the base damage of the weapon too, which would make it pretty lackluster in damage despite having an a scaling
If you decide you want the first thing to do in the game being doing the Catacombs and you grab the Skeleton Key, for just minor faith investment, this thing is really good. It performs well throughout the beginning of the game too... then it stops being good.
Well it's just Oscar on the cover I think. He's pretty based for the little amount he's in the game. Gives us our escape, our flask, and then dies. Based
3:47 thats literally beta content. Originally, oscar and you had been supposed to be playing simultaneously. After getting all 4 Lord souls, he would invade you in the Void before the kiln and he would've talked about how you betrayed him because he thinks that he was the chosen one
Astora's Straight Sword is a decent starting weapon.... if you upgrade it all the way immediately upon obtaining it. I started a "Pure Faith build" today. The ASS (huh, guess it tracks)- fully upgraded with twinkling titanite from the lizards in the Great Hollow, Catacombs, etc. (which you can get to immediately with the master key)- makes quick work of early enemies and is on par with the Divine Claymore I created when the latter was at +2. I think my faith stat was 25 at this point. Once you get a +5 or higher Divine weapon the ASS needs to be retired. But for that first half hour it makes the early game easy.
It's funny, when I played dark souls for the first time, I actually wanted that weapon to be what I run through the game with. But then the black knight halberd dropped and I went with it until I beat artorias. So could go with the abyss greatsword because he is just so damn cool.
Funny. The ASS was the only weapon I used in my first run. Felt great to me until I started a new playthrough with weird routing and all the sudden fighting moonlight butterfly with it at level 5, I wasn't feeling so hot.
Yeah. I learned how weak the Astora Straight Sword was first hand. The first time I played, I wanted to use a build that looked like the character on the cover, since I'm not very creative with my own characters. These days, I just replace the Astora Sword with the Longsword, and the Elite Knight build is pretty much preserved.
I remember one of my first solo runs of DS1 I used this sword for a lil bit, don't think I made past Quelag before I felt the damage drop off. Going from a strength main to a mid character was a hell of a change. Although now I mostly play light rolling mid damage characters since strength can feel ploddy and dex using bleed doesn't feel satisfying to me.
Astora straight sword is a little good if you want to run through catacombs early since it's technically a holy weapon that stops the skeles from respawning
"Because damn, am I going to hate to see sticking to RU-vid meta actually pay off" > 25k views in less than 24 hours Hate tosay it but it payed off. Glad to find you tho, you seem cool
I'd argue the drake sword is much worse. Not only is it hard to upgrade since you need dragon scale, but it also scales terribly. Once you get to sens fortress the snake men are invincible unless you parry or backstab.
7:20 this clip already shows the difference between this weapon and others, with soul spear at this stage you can one shot each of them with i think over 1k damage per shot, with any ultra greatsword you need two R1 hits i believe, with this weapon you deal 44 damage per R1 it seems.
Anything that does more than your punch is certainly viable. At least that is the way I see it. Many people have beaten this game without using a weapon.
Yes This is its most notable feature, since all other sources of this effect are considerably later, and only the killing blow actually needs to be with the weapon. It makes a huge difference in early game catacomb attempts
One of my early DS1 builds was with the astora straight sword, and it worked decently until I got to the archives. it didn’t go well from that point on
My second playthrough I used this sword It was fine honestly the damage wasn't great but it's fine cuz I like having low damage runs without having to resort to extreme measures like punch only run type of stuff My first playthrough I used the dragon ultra great sword btw it was awesome
At the very least the straight sword move set in ds1 is decent, I also used this sword in my first playthrough, till I got the crystal halberd tried it out, saw the damage number and decided I’m using this now lol
The short sword is my favorite weapon in all the games yet i like it more than astora. Rapier too but theres just something about getting a new fresh start and getting a humble short sword and kicking a$$ raw take it to +5 and just skills and basics. Ik the longsword is....longer But its just not it. When they took away the stab in some ds2 update it was heretical. I hardly ever use it now that im an advanced player but when i get invaded theres nothing like taking on a modder with OP weapons And i get naked, no health points invested With an unupgraded shortsword And open hand parry Even if i lose they will question every decision they ever made as they are one hit away from death and they saw my damage bar knowing i went into the fight with sub 1,000 health It forces you to be creative by its limitations. You use ladders more and positioning and the map vertical combat, destructible hang ups. Applying pressure and tension. Its a thrill, win or lose. Try it. It will expose that weakness in your technique youve been ignoring. If all you care about is kill to death ratio youll plateau. Im not the best by any means and i wont even consider beating ds2 with a broken ladle like some. But i love the game. And i chase that special feeling of the razors edge, not strictly technical advantages being applied, thats mostly stress, not thrill. Dont pull your hair out anymore guys, its not worth it. Meet your goals and then relax a bit. Dont just immediately get dissatisfied again. In life or games.
still better than drake sword since most early enemy are weak to magic and it can be obtained right at the start with the master key and it is divine so it is good against skeletons.
@@lharsay Nah. Astora can be upgraded with an easily farmable mat and scales with some stats, Drake Sword doesn't scale and the upgrade material isn't worth wasting on it. the only good thing about Drake is that its a greatsword (objectively the coolest weapon type)
Ngl, in comparison to many other basic weapons this really is terrible. The damage output is pretty mid and I honestly don't get why they gave it the twinkling titanite upgrade path. It would be much more interesting if you could infuse it imo. There are a lot of joke weapons in this game, but this one really lurs you in and happens to waste a lot of your stat points, unless you already spread them out (what I usually don't recommend).
Besides skeletons, it's... a straight sword. Whatever graphs you could draw about its hypothetical performance compared to other similar weapons or weapons in its stats niche or so on, it's ultimately a pretty unremarkable spanking stick with a good moveset. Having to hit a guy one more time to kill 'em is hardly a game changer
...this kinda looks like a fine generic weapon for a first run not an endgame weapon maybe but like, i don't see this being a horrible first timer weapon, i'd use it.
Its not a terrible weapon. I played with a longsword on my first playthrough and had a worse experience, probably becuase i havent invested in damage idk
